


If I Stay

by FamilyTrucksterImagines (oncruisecontrol)



Series: Dean Winchester Reader-Insert One Shots [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood, Car Accidents, Child Death, Coma, F/M, Family Member Death, Heavy Angst, Hospitals, If I Stay-inspired, Injury, Reader-Insert, imagine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 16:25:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11855340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oncruisecontrol/pseuds/FamilyTrucksterImagines
Summary: Based on the Gayle Forman novel/movie If I Stay. After being injured in a car accident, you find yourself in a coma, grappling with the decision to live or die.





	If I Stay

**Author's Note:**

> _And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time,_   
>  _As I stared at my shoes in the ICU that reeked of piss and 409,_   
>  _And I rationed my breaths as I said to myself that I'd already taken too much today,_   
>  _As each descending peak on the LCD took you a little farther away from me,_   
>  _Away from me._

“God, this song sucks,” your younger sister said, reaching for the radio dial, to the protest of everyone else in the car. Your mother slapped her hand away. Her hatred for the song only seemed to fuel everyone else’s love for it, especially her own son’s.

He was wiggling along in the seat next to you, his voice growing louder at his mother’s eye rolls. _“I was following the pack, all swallowed in their coats with scarves of red tied 'round their throats!”_

He was seven. It was Christmas Eve. You were on your way to visit your grandparents, who owned a house in Maine. It had been a while since you’d spent Christmas like this, the way you always did growing up, and your heart was feeling warmer than it had in a long time.

* * *

 

You woke up lying in snow.

It wasn’t too cold. Even though you weren’t wearing a jacket, you didn’t feel those beginning stings of frostbite. It even felt kind of nice.

Everything around you was white. It was snowing so heavily that you couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of you, and that was kind of nice, too. Peaceful. You could have stayed there for hours.

The sound of sirens pierced through your perfect little world, and you found yourself attracted in their direction, like some uncontrollable form of curiosity. They weren’t far away, and as you walked closer, you could see blue and red lights reflecting off the snow.

There was shouting. You could only make out a few words here and there --- _boy, blood, shard, pulse_. You kept moving towards it, until the scene unfolded in front of you.

There were ambulances and cop cars scattered everywhere. So many flashing lights, so many people in uniform. A semi-truck stood diagonally across the road, and a sedan was crumpled like a tin can, laying down in a ditch not far away. In the center of all this, there were bodies. Four of them.

You didn’t know what possessed you to walk straight into it, or why no one even tried to stop you, but you went right for the first body you saw, and fell to your knees at the sight.

Your body was laying there, your position so calm and graceful you wouldn’t think anything was wrong if it weren’t for the red snow beneath your head. You reached out to touch your own cheek, but you could barely feel your skin beneath your fingertips, and then the EMT’s were taking your body away from you.

It sank in.

With shaky hands, you pushed yourself up and starting running to the other bodies. You yelled at the people around you, begging them to tell you how your family was, but they didn’t respond. They couldn’t hear you. All you could do was watch.

The EMTs were shouting out your nephew’s heart rate as they loaded him into the ambulance, and you knew enough to recognize that they were good. Not great, not what they should be, but a good sign. Your sister’s wasn’t nearly as healthy, and you found yourself screaming at the paramedics to do something, to help her faster, but they couldn’t hear you, and you knew that they were doing the best they could, anyway.

You turned back to your mother in time to watch them zip up her body bag.

* * *

 

You stood at the foot of the hospital bed, looking at yourself.

You had bandaged wrapped around your head, and an oxygen mask strapped tightly to your face. All sorts of tubes and wires were connected to you, and the deeps from the machines were jarring against the silence.

You looked so _small_.

You’d once believed you were invincible. You’d been so strong, so self-assured, so ready for battle. For years, danger was the lake you drank from, and now…

You’d been taken down in a car accident.

You stood there for hours, watching yourself. You were so much younger than you felt. You weren’t even thirty yet. How could so much have gone on in such a short period of time? How could you have become this tired?

You saw yourself get two surgeries --- one on your skull, another on your ribs --- but you forced yourself not to watch your sister’s or your nephew’s. There were some things you weren’t strong enough to bear. Your nephew came out of his last surgery stable; it looked like he would make it. He would probably even wake up soon. You were so relieved, your incorporeal form burst into tears.

Your sister, however, didn’t seem like she would last much longer.

You sat by her for hours, begging her to be okay, and begging God to fix this. You needed your sister, and your nephew needed his mother. You couldn’t handle this without her. You held her hand while you screamed and sobbed, and wished that she could feel you. You wished that you could pull her back.

* * *

Your grandparents came to visit, but they didn’t say much. They just sat by your bedside, crying. Your grandfather gripped your hand so tight you could feel the slight pain as you paced, and your grandmother held tight to her rosary. Even though they couldn’t see you, you found yourself avoiding eye contact. It was hard to watch them, hard to look at two people whose daughter had died, and whose grand- and great-grandchildren were most likely headed the same way.

They eventually left to visit your nephew. It wasn’t until then that you realized you’d been crying for God knows how long – probably the entire time. You were wiping away the tears when you noticed two men at the nurses station. Even from behind, you could tell that they were tense and panicked, like half the people who came through the ICU had been. And even from behind, you knew exactly who they were.

Bobby had been your emergency contact for years, and it suddenly occurred to you that you’d forgotten to change that when you returned to civilian life. Of course he would tell Sam and Dean. After all, they’d been your partners up until ten months ago.

The nurse pointed towards your room, and the Winchesters were at your bedside faster than what seemed possible. Sam towered over you, murmuring things that you couldn’t quite make out. He reached out to brush your cheek, and you heard “cold” somewhere in his whisperings. It sent a shiver down your spine.

Dean, for his part, paced in the corner, running his hands through his hair and down his face before clenching his fists by his side, and then lather, rinse, repeat. Him, you could hear. He was just mumbling incoherent strings of swears. You took a step toward him before remembering that he couldn’t see, hear, or feel you. You couldn’t comfort him – not this time.

* * *

 

Your sister died at 1:37 the next morning.

You flatlined for a forty seconds. Later, a nurse would comment that it was out of grief.

* * *

 

Dean stayed in your room all night. He slept for twenty minutes. After you flatlined, he hardly let himself blink.

In the morning, he met your grandparents, and stuttered while introducing himself. He’d told the nurses you were close cousins, but that obviously wasn’t going to work now.

“Old friend,” he chose. “Consider her family.” Part of you hated him for saying it. He didn’t have the right to anymore.

Your grandmother gave him a kind smile and pulled him into a hug. He was tense at first, but eventually relaxed some and returned it. By the way his eyelids fluttered, you could tell that it provided him a tiny bit of comfort.

It put a crack in the levee, too, though. His eyes were glassy when they pulled away.

He cleared his throat. “I’m really sorry about your losses.”

She thanked him softly and then began to ask him about you. Did he travel with you while you were a ‘photographer?’ How did you meet? What were you like with him? Soon, they were trading stories about you, laughing with each other and giving your empty body fond little glances.

He told them about the time you got plastered and sang SexyBack with a stranger in a karaoke bar. Grandpa told him about the way you used to play pirates with your dolls instead of throwing tea parties. Grandma told him about your first black eye, which you got defending a shy little boy in middle school. It went on for what felt like hours, and every once in a while one of them would cry a little.

When you realized how much this sounded like you were already dead, you walked away.

They’d moved your nephew to the children’s ward. This was a good thing – it meant he was stable. He was even awake when you got there, drinking from a cup of juice. You cried, but smiled, standing at the foot of his bed. It was the best and the worst you felt since you woke up.

He was alive. And he was an orphan.

* * *

 

Dean’s hand collided with a wall.

“It’s not your fault,” Sam said.

His jaw tightened. He shook his head. He didn’t respond.

“It was a car accident, Dean. There’s nothing you could have done.”

“I could have– If I hadn’t– She wouldn’t have even _been_ there.”

“You couldn’t have predicted that.”

His hands were balled up into white-knuckled fists and shaking. “I was trying to protect her and now she’s… _God dammit!_ ”

You gently grabbed his bicep, not that he could feel it. Your body was laying cold and immobile on the hospital bed in front of him.

_Coma. Life support._

Dean was crying. Sam stared down at his lap.

You’d spent ten months angry at him; ten months swearing that you never wanted to see him again. He knew it, too – you’d made it loud and clear that he had no place in your life anymore. He was the one who pushed you away to begin with. He dropped you off on your mother’s doorstep and told you to stop hunting. That had been the end.

* * *

 

A nurse looked down at you while changing some of your IV bags. You had crashed again and were now enjoying your first bit of solitude since you got here. The only time Dean ever left the room was to allow your grandparents some time alone with you, or when other friends had stopped in to see you. It would have been suffocating if it weren’t for the fact that you were unconscious. Luckily, your soul could walk out at any time without him knowing.

But now he was dozing in the waiting room, and you were alone with the nurse.

When she finished, she glanced over her shoulder before bending down to whisper in your ear.

“Here's the secret, baby – if you live, if you die, it's all up to you.”

* * *

 

The worst moments are always the ones you don’t see coming.

When your nephew died, you knew that nothing else would ever hurt worse.

* * *

 

When Sam came back, he brought in an Ouija board, just as he did when Dean was in a coma years ago. Dean didn’t like it, but even he was getting desperate to talk to you, so the two of them sat down on the floor and set it up in front of them.

You were numb, watching them. You stayed sitting on the edge of the bed.

They placed their fingers on the planchette. Dean’s eyes darted around the room while Sam began to ask questions.

“Y/N, are-are you here?”

You nibbled on your lip, but made no moves to answer.

“Please, Y/N. We just want to know if you’re okay.”

You looked away, towards the window. You didn’t have anything to say to them, and you didn’t want to give them false hope by answering, because you weren’t okay, and when you looked at your near-lifeless body, all you could think was that you didn’t want to be in it. You knew that that pain you were feeling now would be a thousand times worse when you faced the reality of living without the people who loved you.

After a while, they gave up. The bags under Dean’s eyes provided reminder that he hadn’t slept more than an hour combined since he got here, and as he laid his head on his hands, it was obvious just how tired he had gotten. You wouldn’t have been surprised if he fell asleep like that. He needed it.

Sam chewed on his lip. He placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder gently. “Hey, why don’t you go get some lunch and coffee?”

He opened his mouth as if to protest, but ended up nodding. “Yeah, alright.”

Sam watched him as he left, and sat down by your bedside. He just looked at you for a long time, a sad expression in his eyes.

“I heard about your nephew,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “I can only imagine how this all must feel, and I can’t think of anyone who deserves it less.” His eyes were misty, as everyone’s had been when they spoke to you. Seeing them cry always made you do the same, and you felt a tear roll down your cheek. “And I know that you probably feel like you don’t have anyone left.”

You nodded, knowing he couldn’t see it.

“But, uhh, I wanted to tell you that that’s not true. There are like twenty people in that waiting room right now. Your grandparents, your new friends, Chuck, Bobby, Jody, Annie, Cas… the list goes on. Some are related to you, some aren’t. But we’re all your family. You still have a family.”

* * *

 

It was dark outside. The sky was clear, and you could see the stars from your seat on the window sill. They were beautiful, as were the lights of the city twenty-some stories below. You were alone with your grandfather now. He brought a sense of calm with him wherever he went – he always had. He was also the first person who went half an hour without saying a word. It reminded you of all the times you’d sat with him in his study as a little girl; his face crinkled up in concentration while he tapped away at his type-writer, and your head in a book. He was the kind of man to only speak when he truly had something to say.

And after a while, he did.

“It’s okay,” your grandfather whispered. “If you want to go. Everyone wants you to stay. I want you to stay more than I've ever wanted anything in my life.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “But that's what I want and I could see why it might not be what you want. So I just wanted to tell you that I understand if you go. It's okay if you have to leave us. It's okay if you want to stop fighting.”

You felt yourself breathe for the first time since your nephew died. The permission he had just offered you felt like a gift.

* * *

 

You didn’t know how you knew, but you knew that all you would have to do was walk out of that hospital and it would be over. Heaven was waiting behind a pair of automatic doors. All you had to do was leave.

You were almost there – so close that you could see the light behind them – when you heard his voice. It was soft, softer than you’ve ever heard it, and raspy like he’d been crying again. You felt his hand in yours, with his calloused thumb brushing across the back of it.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been as scared as I am right now.”

Without thinking, your feet began moving back toward him – toward yourself.

“Apocalypse, hell, my own deaths… none of it has ever terrified me as much as this.” He took in a shaky breath. “And I know what I did. I know that I said awful things, and hurt you, and ruined everything, and I don’t even have any right to be here, but I-I can’t handle this one,” he said, followed by a sad, humorless laugh. He took a long pause after that, squeezing your hand.

You found your way back to your room and sat across from him, watching as he continued.

“Look, I…” Another deep breath. “If you stay, I will do whatever you want. You can be part of the team again, or-or I’ll quit hunting, too, if you want. I haven’t been able to in the past, but for you, I can do it. Or if you want me to go, I can go, and you will never see me again. I can lose you like that if I don’t lose you like this.”

He pressed a kiss to the back of your hand.

“I love you, Y/N. I’ve always been so in love with you.”

Your breath caught in your throat. Your relationship was never a relationship. You were close, sure – he’d been your best friend, the most important person in your life – but you never thought he was _in love_ with you.

The monitor behind him showed your heartbeat speed up ever so slightly.

“I promise, I will do anything. Just stay.”

* * *

 

The first thing you heard was the heart monitor beeping.

The second was Dean’s gruff voice whispering “you’re awake. You’re awake.”

**Author's Note:**

> (Find this story on Tumblr [here](https://cruisecontroller-imagines.tumblr.com/post/164475030671/if-i-stay-dean-winchester-x-reader-warnings).)


End file.
